The short-lived but intense tornado struck without warning and caused three deaths and 500 injuries along its 11.3-mile (18.2 km) track.

A thunderstorm cell formed south of Long Island around 10:20 am, and became a supercell sometime later after interacting with a surface low-pressure center.

This was later determined to be because of missing atmospheric sounding data, as well as an incorrect assessment of the height of the tropopause, which led to an underestimation of the strength of the thunderstorm which produced the tornado.

[4] Eyewitness reports have the tornado ripping the roof off a grocery store in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Poquonock Elementary School was heavily damaged; fortunately, students were sent home early at 1:30 pm on Wednesdays.

The airport's weather station recorded a wind gust of 39 m/s (87 mph; 140 km/h) as the tornado passed nearby.

[8] The tornado then crossed the northern portion of the airport, where the New England Air Museum was located.

Governor Ella Grasso lived just a block away from the tornado's path, though she was in Hartford at the time of the storm.

[9][12] Because of the vast scope of the damage, initially Windsor town officials feared many, possibly even hundreds, of people could have been killed.